By: Tiffany Weimer
Tiffany Weimer rolls out of bed before the sun has risen to pursue her WPS dream.
You’re in the middle of a wonderful dream. Most likely something about you being a rock star of some type. You’re just about to really rock out in your favorite part in the song when this awful sound comes out of your amp. It’s familiar, but awful.
Oh right, that’s your alarm.
Turning over frantically trying to turn it off, as if you were trying to squash a spider, you realize its 6:30am and it’s time to wake up. The sun doesn’t rise until a little after seven, so it’s pitch black out and during the next few minutes a heavy debate goes on in your mind.
Do you go back to sleep, because your bed is so warm and comfortable and let’s face it, your eyes really don’t want to open.
Or…
Do you get up and go to training?
Since most girls are still in college, our 8am training sessions consist of four or five of us and then any guys who want to get a run in and who are willing to wake up that early.
Basically, it’s voluntary. There are no coaches telling us we have to be there and no consequences for poor attendance.
So it comes down to a choice that we have to make.
By 6:40am I am out of bed and around 7:05am I am sitting in a freezing cold car, bewildered by the fact that some people do this everyday of their lives.
It’s a little less than an hour drive to the indoor facility in Farmington, Conn. so there is no rush. For most of the drive I try to find a radio station that is actually playing music, but it usually doesn’t happen and so I plug my iPod in.
Once the car gets warm enough I find that the heat is making me sleepy so I have to open the windows and blast the music to get a little life in me. By this time I start to get a little hungry and search my bag for the little Balance Bar I brought.
As I pull into the parking lot, the sun has fully risen. There are four other cars there as well as my own. Walking into the Farmington Sports Arena (FSA), it’s completely silent and pitch black. We will be the first to use the field for the day.
Everyone is always slow to get ready. No one wants to take his or her sweatpants off because it’s so cold in the building still and some of us are still half asleep anyway.
Eventually one person starts warming up and that’s the sign for everyone else to get moving. We get a few touches on the ball and we’re ready to start.
That’s when it hits me.
I dreamt about being a rock star because I was playing Guitar Hero before I went to sleep last night…
But then something a little deeper hits me. I know why I wake up at 6:30am. I know why I miss parties and 6pm happy hours and spring break in Cancun. I know exactly why.
It’s because there is no place in the world I would rather be than on that field. There is nothing as fun as scoring a goal or nutmegging someone, especially a guy.
It takes a lot to play at the highest level and that will be the case for many of us next year when WPS kicks off. But I believe that there are two things that separate the good from the great: sacrifice and a love for the game – two different things that seemingly go hand-in-hand.
If you love something enough and want it bad enough, you’ll do anything to have it.
And there will be times during it all when you will surprise people with the things you will do for the game.
But so much more satisfying will be the times you surprise yourself with the things you will do for the game.